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Wednesday, October 12, 2011

For the last couple of weeks we have had cool nights down to 2 or 3 degrees C. We've had 5 or 6 nights with light frosts of minus 2 o3 C. The days continually get shorten so we have less sunlight each day. As a result plants become very inactive and some are totally inactive. So my gardening has pretty well finished except for some clean up.

In my vegetable garden I still have carrots, parsnips, beets and turnips. These plants aren't doing anything. They just keep better if they're left in cool soil. I had tomatoes growing on the south side of my house which is brick. It's a super place to grow tomatoes but the tomatoes gave up the fight and I pulled them out a week ago.

I grow very few annuals. My petunias are still doing well and are full of blossoms so this is the only thing I am watering. All perennials are pretty well dormant. I want to wait a little while longer before I cut them off. Grass in the parks and boulevards is brown. Grass in yards where fertilizer and water have been applied is still green.

Most trees have lost their leaves. We have a few trees that hang on to leaves for a long while.

So all I have to do is clean up. Leaf raking will go on for a while as leaves come to visit my place from a long way away where they have not been raked. The pictures of the same ash tree were taken 50 days apart. I still have compost to dig into my garden. Then there are those perennials that I have to cut off and that means I am finished for the year.

So if I count all the activity from the spring time I'm 99% finished. It was a tough year because of weather but in the end everything paid off. It's a summer of pleasure watching plants grow and develop and if a few birds visit that's a bonus.